


I Am Goose

by katekane



Category: Among Us (Video Game), Get Out (2017), Samantha - An American Girl Holiday (2004), Top Gun (1986), Untitled Goose Game (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:40:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28117071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katekane/pseuds/katekane
Summary: Goose has something very important to do, but not the greatest attention span. If only he remembered what it is he has to do - or could make the stubborn villagers help him find out - before time runs out...
Relationships: The Groundskeeper/The Man | The Tidy Neighbor (Untitled Goose Game)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	I Am Goose

**Author's Note:**

  * For [boasamishipper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/boasamishipper/gifts).



> Thanks to Beatrice_Otter for betaing!

I am Goose. There is something I need to do. This I know with certainty.

I broke out of the pen, but still feel oddly trapped.

The lake glitters in the sun, and I glide effortlessly through the water. I should be loose as a goose.

So why this sense of urgency? I have a task. Something important. Something I need to communicate.

Not many people around to say it to, though. This village is small and repetitive. There is the groundskeeper with his tulips. The tidy neighbor with his roses. The messy neighbor with her mismatched everything. The shopkeeper and the little boy. The owners and the patrons of the local pub.

Might as well start with the groundskeeper. Maybe he will understand my predicament if I explain it properly. He is admiring his carrots and tulips and salad while leaning on his rake.

Rake in the lake. Huh, a rhyme.

He wipes his brow and ignores my attempts at communication. Honk, I go, and it startles him. He jitters, and in turn his keys jingle.

Ooooh shiny!

Keys in the lake. Shiny keys in the lake.

The groundskeeper is now chasing me with his rake. Better take off on the lake, water off a goose's back.

* * * * *

I am Goose. There is something important I need to do.

The lake glitters in the sun, and I need to make myself understood.

The groundskeeper failed to listen, but perhaps the little boy will be different. In any case he does not have a rake. I try to wave him down, but he makes a run for the phone booth in the corner of the square. Honk, I try from my side of the window, but he has his back turned and is frantically dialing 9-1-1.

Silly goose.

The shopkeeper would surely never understand. She has made that much clear with the No Geese sign guarding the perimeters of her kingdom.

A kingdom of chubby vegetables, polished fruit, and shiny apples.

Ooooh shiny apples!

I think I was in the middle of something, it's right there at the corner of my mind, but beyond my grasp. Unlike the apple now firmly in my grasp. She chases me with her broom, and I find myself in her garage surrounded by her stock of more vegetables, crates full of firework, boxes with toilet paper.

She hits me on the head with her broom, so the shiny apple falls from my beak.

Honk! I complain.

She has so many apples and now I have none. This is capitalism at its worst! I am the 99 percent. I need fruit!

I also clearly need to make a hasty escape: Garage door. Other door. Noise and spectacle and angry brooms and gestures. Then retreat to lake.

Whatever this thing is, this thing I need to do but cannot quite remember, it feels like a wild goose chase.

* * * * *

I am Goose. I share the glittery lake with bright red leaves shed from nearby trees. We chase each other across the surface, and I always win. The goose hangs high as they say!

Is a goose supposed to know so many proverbs? I am not sure. I am sure that I am not sure, and it makes me uneasy.

I need to talk to someone.

Honk, the groundskeeper chases me with his rake. Honk, the shopkeeper chases me with her broom. I seek shelter in a place full of televisions. Across the many screens, a pilot finishes off another's sentence: He feels the need for speed.

I can relate. The pilot's name is Goose. I take this as a sign to pick up my own speed before shopkeeper or television salesman hit me with something far worse than a broom.

Garage door, other door, spectacle and noise and curses, and I finally make it to the only peaceful place in this village aside from the lake: the tidy neighbor's neatly trimmed garden.

He hums as he reads his paper and drinks his tea. He tips his cup and taps his foot. There is a slipper there. It is decidedly not shiny.

Did you see the film, says messy neighbor from across the wooden fence, I sure could use a wingman like Goose.

I can tell from tidy neighbor's grunt that messy neighbor is misremembering the film. Or perhaps tidy neighbor simply does not like the film. He certainly does not like his neighbor.

I, on the other hand, like the idea of a wingman called Goose. It sounds like someone doing something of importance. And I know I have something important to do, only trying to remember the specifics is like shoeing the goose.

Tidy neighbor looks at his prized rose. Messy neighbor trims her only tidy plant. It does little to counter the surrounding colors and paints and laundry and figurines and shiny wind chimes.

Ooooh shiny!

These chimes are stuck. I pull at them in random order, and they mock me with soprano voices. How can something with such diminutive vocal organs be so strong?

Honk, I exclaim with frustration. At least I am loud!

Messy neighbor does not appreciate my music. This confounds me. She has a goose figurine proudly on display and a brass gong much louder than me. Why can we not be friends?

Honk, I ask, but making these humans comprehend anything is a gone goose.

I am Goose. I have something important to do. I have to do it elsewhere for now.

* * * * *

I am Goose. But last night, as starlight shone from the sky and the surface of the lake alike, I dreamt I was something else entirely.

I was not among the constellations reflected on the lake, but among those above. I was not in water, yet I still felt oddly weightless. I was on a ship, but not the kind that travels across waves.

Something was wrong. Something malfunctioned. Someone had died.

"Impostor!" The accusation was as loud and sharp as a whip and I woke with a start on the lake.

Now I am no longer sure whether I am a Goose who had dreams of the sky – or someone from the sky dreaming I am Goose? I still have something important to do. That, at least, I know with some certainty.

Did you see the film? asks messy neighbor across the fence. Is it not lovely how that young Samantha saved those orphaned sisters and everyone ended up living happily ever after?

Tidy neighbor grunts something that I take to mean he does not like the film. He does not believe in happy endings. And he does not particularly care to talk to his neighbor. Since she cannot take the hint, I decide to help him cut the conversation short.

I duck (can a goose duck?) through an opening in the fence, sneak around messy neighbor and release her very loud brass gong.

GONG!

It is better than a honk, and tidy neighbor spills his tea on his newspaper while messy neighbor starts chasing me around. I duck back into the peaceful garden of tidy neighbor, but he too starts chasing me. I cannot for the life of me understand this ingratitude among humans. I just helped him!

Perhaps he is displeased with the golden tea stain on his newspaper? After all, he is a bit of a neat freak. Luckily I can help with that as well: There is a small fountain-like pond at the end of his garden. The water there is fresh and clear and glittery, like the lake. I soak his dirty newspaper in the pond, so it will be as good as new.

Rather than thank me tidy neighbor begins chasing me with a baseball bat. I don't know why I am surprised; he is a human after all. A wild goose never laid a tame egg.

I believe a human would need a drink after an ordeal like mine, so I set course for the pub around the corner. I am no human, and I know little about pints, but what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Right?

* * * * *

I am Goose. I am never having another pint. Or any of that stuff deceptively labelled Grey Goose. My head feels too large for my beak, and the glittery lake hurts my eyes. Fortunately the sun sets early these days. We are fast approaching winter.

The thought gives me goose bumps, even though my feathers provide plenty of insulation. I am not cold. I am overwhelmed by a sense of impending doom. I suspect it has something to do with that feeling of urgency I have had for as long as I remember. Which, admittedly, is not long. The attention span of a goose is limited. Possibly, that is part of my problem.

I need allies, allies with a better memory.

My safest bet is the boy – he wouldn't say boo to a goose. However, whenever I approach him he runs off and loses his glasses and trips in the puddles that are beginning to freeze.

I need a new strategy to get through to these people. Honking only gets me so far. I need to speak human. They are not bright, these villagers, but maybe if I get them to talk to one another and put their minds together. Maybe then we can solve this thing that keeps nagging me.

I steal groundskeeper's radio. Human voices emerge from it; maybe it will do the trick. Groundskeeper is chasing after it, so my plan seems to work. I want to take him to shopkeeper or the neighbors or the pub so the humans and I can work together, but he stops short at the edge of the lake.

Honk? I ask and accidentally drop the radio in the water.

It falls quiet. Could you say I killed the goose that lays the golden egg? Probably not. But I did kill the radio star. I need to find a more resistant communication device.

Shopkeeper has a larger radio. Unfortunately it proves too heavy for me. After a detour into the garage with its crates and boxes I end up in someone's backyard and there are two little radios on a picnic table. Surely nobody needs two radios, so it does not surprise me that no one chases me with anything when I steal the bright yellow one.

I take it to tidy neighbor's garden: the best, quiet place in town to think. Oddly enough, the radio remains silent. Maybe it has been sabotaged? The word "impostor" from my dream echoes eerily in my limited goose brain and oh how I wish I could solve this thing without the stubborn humans.

But I need the humans. So I drop the silent yellow radio in the hedge near tidy neighbor's outdoor table and go back for the blue radio instead. That one seems to work; I hear voices coming from it and am about to snatch it when I realize I know these particular voices.

They are the voices of tidy neighbor and messy neighbor. This is not a normal radio. This is one of those communication devices a captain might use to contact the crew members on his space ship from the bridge.

It strikes me as significant that I know this. Then I forget my train of thought, as geese tend to do, and instead listen to the neighborly conversation.

Did you see the film, asks messy neighbor.

And it would appear tidy neighbor has in fact seen this particular film. At least he does not grunt in quite the same way he usually does.

Could you imagine being in that horrible sunken place? messy neighbor presses on.

Do you think maybe it's like that place you’re falling toward when you’re going to sleep? Do you think Chris being caged in his own mind is a metaphor for internalized racism? Do you think it weird that almost everyone in our village is white? Should we be worried that we have no disabled people or gay people in the neighborhood?

We do, says tidy neighbor, and I wonder if wearing glasses counts as a disability.

Why, of course, I never realized, but it all makes perfect sense, says messy neighbor, and this is a testament to why I need the humans. They can make sense of things. I myself get too easily distracted.

You again, yells shopkeeper, and I remember that I have more than my attention span working against me.

I escape into her garage, then remember it is a dead end. So I drop the blue radio that was never really a real radio and make a run for the one place I never sink: my unsunken place, the glittery lake where I forget what was weighing on my mind. In fact I feel entirely weightless as I float graciously among leaves and pint glasses and a drowned radio.

I am Goose. I know this much. And knowing something for certain, something I can hold on to, surely means tidy neighbor is wrong in thinking that happy ends never occur?

* * * * *

I am Goose. The lake no longer glitters. Instead of gentle waves lulling me to sleep there is now a hard and unforgiving white membrane separating me from the delicious seaweed below. I need to find food elsewhere.

The salad is long gone, but there are still beets. I pull one up – after all, the groundskeeper has so many. He chases me nonetheless, and I can no longer escape into the lake. I make a run for it, groundskeeper at my heels, and I know better than to steal anything when we pass shopkeeper's tempting display.

Little good that does: shopkeeper mistakes groundskeeper's beet for her beet and suddenly they are both after me.

I head into tidy neighbor's garden because I think of it as a sanctuary. Tidy neighbor pops out to see what the commotion is. Groundskeeper seems to have forgotten all about me. He is admiring tidy neighbor's rose, and tidy neighbor brings him a second teacup.

Shopkeeper, however, is harder to get rid of. She is so frightening with her broom that I forget to look where I am going. I accidentally break messy neighbor's vase and ring the brass gong and make groundskeeper spill tea on tidy neighbor's shirt and all of a sudden everyone is chasing me: shopkeeper, tidy neighbor, messy neighbor, groundskeeper – and when did boy and television salesman join in?

Well, I did want the humans to get together. Did I not? I forget. This goose mind feels a bit like a cage sometimes. Perhaps this is the sunken place messy neighbor talked about?

In any case I better get going. I run as fast as my waddling legs will carry me through backyards and doors and spectacle and noise and cursing and other doors until finally I can run no further.

Pub owner is cutting off my way.

I am going to cook this goose, he says, and I honk because he is getting the proverb wrong.

It should be "I am going to cook _his_ goose", which means to spoil someone's plans or to sabotage something, say, if you were and impostor on a spaceship or...

Pub owner takes a step towards me just as the sky breaks open. Little white things, not stars, fall around us.

My, the old woman is plucking her goose, says messy neighbor and pokes out her tongue to catch some of the little white things.

Seems we get a white Christmas this year, shopkeeper adds.

Groundskeeper and tidy neighbor say nothing. They are looking up, like the others, but not at the sky. No, at a conspicuous little green branch with red berries oddly hung from the pub entrance right above their heads.

I think they are about to get that happy ending which tidy neighbor did not believe in, but I am too overwhelmed with my own realization to pay much attention:

 _Christmas_.

This is the terror I couldn't quite place. This explains the sense of urgency, of impending doom, of a deadline rapidly approaching.

Christmas is the time of year where the humans do get together. But not in a way that might help me solve this thing I've been struggling with. Oh no, they get together to share their love for cooked goose.

This is not how things were supposed to end. This is a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and I am pretty certain it has happened to me before. There is only one thing left to do:

HONK!

I scream and it momentarily stuns everybody and allows me to escape right between the legs of pub owner, under the terrace, out through the back, further on into the hedge in tidy neighbor's garden.

I am not yet out of danger. Oh no, not in a village full of holiday drunk carnivores. Not on a planet so willing to roast me on a spit in celebration of a life born and later sacrificed on a pole – yes, the irony is entirely lost on this species. Nowhere on earth is safe for a goose on Christmas.

I need to leave. Yes. Now I remember.

I am Goose and not supposed to be near any glittery lake. I am supposed to stop impostor from harming my ship. Or maybe I am the impostor? I certainly seem to leave disasters in my wake.

No matter. I need to hitch a ride away from this jolly hellhole. Unfortunately I have no electronic thumb. I need something else that is clearly visible from anywhere in the galaxy.

Something shiny.

Not keys or wind chimes or even lakes, no it must be something far more potent. Kind of like those torches the villagers have lit to aid their search for me. They are horrifying, perfectly matched to their pitchforks and hungry eyes, but they do give me an idea.

The garage. More specifically the crates in the garage, ready for the next gruesome celebration, the one that comes almost immediately after Christmas. If only I could get those torches near those crates without risking getting stuck in the garage myself.

My toe hits something in the hedge. Yellow not-quite-radio. A small light suggests it still works after all this time. A Christmas miracle perhaps? Certainly the answer to my prayer, because I do remember where I left the other half of this communication system: in the garage.

I sneak out until I am near the village mob, near enough that they can hear me, but not see me.

HONK!

They run in the direction of my voice.

HONK HONK!

I have now led them into the square where shopkeeper keeps her goods.

HONK HONK HONK!

This time I say it into yellow radio, so the mob hears my voice from blue radio and go straight into the garage with their fire. I, on the other hand, am at a safe distance when chaos erupts.

Ooooh shiny!

It sputters and sparkles in all the colors of the rainbow, all across the sky. What a great display!

And not just in this tiny, nameless village. Television salesman is filming everything and the firework is live-streamed to devices all over the world and, indeed, other worlds, too.

In one world a crew member currently on leave calls another crew member currently aboard their spaceship, and with wormholes being what they are it takes less than a split-second for them to land in this hole.

Ooooh how shiny the spaceship is! I head straight for it and am caught by man wearing a purple spacesuit. Not caught in a pen, but in a warm embrace.

There you are! purple says, then adds: It took us much too long to find the impostor.

I briefly wonder if he means me, since I have certainly been found after a long time, but apparently the pieces form a different puzzle:

Impostor beamed you down to earth after you saw him killing off our colleague, purple continues. Completely unnecessary precaution I may add: with your attention span you would've made a terrible witness! But I suppose he was desperate. I certainly have been – it gets lonely out there in the vast universe without my pet.

Pet!

That's what I am. I am Goose. Not _a_ goose exactly, but the closest thing you can find on Ypsilon Five. I am also purple's favorite pet. I like shiny things and vegans and I absolutely hate Christmas.

Good thing I don't have to stay to celebrate this one. No, the villagers can have their shiny ornaments to themselves. Why go for sad replacements, when I can be among actual stars.

* * * * *

I am Goose and currently leaving the villagers at a speed equivalent to time warp, factor 7, but I can still watch them on a screen.

Boy is cheering at the fireworks. Tidy neighbor is uncharacteristically messy from thoroughly snogging with the groundskeeper. Shopkeeper looks appalled as her goods take to the sky. Messy neighbor seems to enjoy the show as much as the boy, and everyone is accepting hot toddy from pub owner.

No one seems to recall that a moment ago a flying saucer landed on their tiny village square. Or that a moment before that they were all chasing a goose that was never supposed to be there in the first place.

What can I say? Humans have a very limited attention span.

**Author's Note:**

> I did my very best to integrate every single one of your requests - I hope you like the outcome! It's a bit wacky, but then so is Untitled Goose Game... 
> 
> I also had a lot of fun trying to use every single goose proverb (and one that is technically a duck proverb) in my story, which proved a bit challenging as English is not my first language. Finally, I really enjoyed sneaking in a bit of gay happily ever after for the groundskeeper and tidy neighbor that have to put up with so much in the game.
> 
> Merry Solstice to you, wherever you are!


End file.
